Pandas coming back to Zoo Atlanta for first time since 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced some panda diplomacy on Thursday during a meeting with President Trump and other White House officials, saying that two pandas are an "envoy of friendship." 

The short announcement was the latest update since the Atlanta zoo announced a new research agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association. As part of that agreement, the organization expects to send over male panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang, from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

"We can't wait to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our members, guests, city, and community back to the wonder and joy of giant pandas," the zoo's president, Raymond B. King, said in a statement in April.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that the new round of cooperation on conservation would help improve the health and well-being of the giant pandas, advance global biodiversity protection and strengthen the friendship between the Chinese and American people.

During an earlier giant panda agreement between the zoo and China that concluded in 2024, pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang gave birth to seven bears, the zoo said. Lun Lun and Yang Yang and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, where the rest of their offspring reside.

Details about when Ping Ping and Fu Shuang may arrive in Atlanta remain limited. A spokesperson for the zoo told CBS News Atlanta that they would not be sharing the date at this time. In the meantime, zoo officials say they were carrying out facility upgrades, among other preparation work, to create a more comfortable and safer environment for the pair with technical guidance from Chinese experts.

Giant pandas have been a symbol of the U.S.-China friendship ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. in 1972, and China has long used its giant panda loan program as a tool of Beijing's soft power diplomacy worldwide.

Currently, two zoos in the United States have pandas. The National Zoo and the San Diego Zoo both received pandas from China in 2024.